"if you see a stylus, they blew it."
- Steve Jobs, after the 2010 iPad introduction.
- Steve Jobs, after the 2010 iPad introduction.
He felt that Modes obscure the immediate discoverability of functions and they keep you from pushing your design to ensure you can use something without left clicking or pulling out a pen. It should just work.
IMHO these non-discoverable items are a barrier to use. Screens are big enough that buttons can be drawn on them, and even with text.
You'll notice that they introduced this stylus for the iPad Pro, and not for the regular iPad. This stylus is for a specific pro user that actually needs a pen input.